I generally shoot multiple exposures and blend them (HDR) for waterfalls if I don't have ND's on me just because of the potential for blown out skies and waterfalls. I'm loving the composition but it's definitely over saturated on my monitor, and maybe a little warm? Looks way sharpened to me, too (can see the pattern in the rocks to the left of the waterfall). Hope this helps.

Benjamin Hicks wrote:
I generally shoot multiple exposures and blend them (HDR) for waterfalls if I don't have ND's on me just because of the potential for blown out skies and waterfalls. I'm loving the composition but it's definitely over saturated on my monitor, and maybe a little warm? Looks way sharpened to me, too (can see the pattern in the rocks to the left of the waterfall). Hope this helps.

I've never done HDR, although I can't wait to get into it. One of the problems is I'm post processing on a 14" laptop, so it's hard to tell sometimes. I do know that the green was extremely vibrant while I was there and I tried to make sure it looked like what I saw. On regular monitors though, it probably is over saturated.

I didn't sharpen it at all though, so I'm not sure why it looks like that.

Thank you so much for your feedback! I'm getting a larger monitor soon and hopefully it'll make it so I see what others see.

sean7488 wrote:
Do you have any ND filters? It could help with the overblown sky.
Are you referring to a graduated ND filter? I don't think the OP thought that was what you were talking about.

Graduated ND's should be part of a basic landscape kit, although HDR is preferable in many instances.

HDR is pretty easy nowadays. Keep your aperture constant and vary shutter speed. My Canon 5D makes three exposure bracketing easy. I think this would require more exposures to blend over a broader range available with just normal bracketing.

HDR's don't have to have the "HDR look". With the right software and adjustments, very natural results can be obtained.

dmacmillan wrote:
Are you referring to a graduated ND filter? I don't think the OP thought that was what you were talking about.

Graduated ND's should be part of a basic landscape kit, although HDR is preferable in many instances.

HDR is pretty easy nowadays. Keep your aperture constant and vary shutter speed. My Canon 5D makes three exposure bracketing easy. I think this would require more exposures to blend over a broader range available with just normal bracketing.

HDR's don't have to have the "HDR look". With the right software and adjustments, very natural results can be obtained.
Can CS6 do HDR? And I know I have a setting on my camera that allows 3 shots (I believe) to be taking at once to allow different exposures.

I would need to read my manual, but I'm getting a 70D today, so I'll be reading that book instead of T1i

As far as ND's, I was thinking of getting a variable ND filter instead of graduated...Although I can see how graduated would help in this instance. Graduated seems hard though, but I guess it's a learning curve.

My main thing is getting a monitor like everyone else sees so that I can not oversaturate. You should have seen it though, the moss was incredibly vibrant and deep green. It was really beautiful.

I should have fixed the overblown sky in post processing, but honestly I didn't notice it. I need to do a better job at post processing, but it's been years since I did it a lot, and I'm very, very rusty. I had a friend help with it that's a professional photographer, and she's more up on that sort of thing.

I recently did some HDR for the first time in a while. I'm interested in natural looking HDR and auditioned several products. Here's what I found:

CS6 (I own it) - It gives a natural look, but the image was flat looking. There wasn't much control to change how it mixes the files. The highlights ended up too light.

NIK HDR Pro (I own it) - I just didn't like the look for landscapes, too "HDR". I could not sufficiently adjust to get a good result.

Oleneo (trial)- I loved the user interface and the amount of control it offered. I also liked the look, but it had two problems that knocked it out of contention. It has ineffective ghost reduction actions. The clouds had moved between the exposures and the blurring was very noticeable. Also, it really accentuated the chromatic aberration (CA) that my wide angle lens creates.

Photomatix (trial) - I had tried a very early version that was hard to use and gave dodgy results. The newest version is far better. It handled ghosting much better than Oleneo and also got rid of the CA. I didn't like the interface as much as Oleneo and I wish I had a little more control over file blending. Still, I was happiest with the images produced by it.

Download the trials and try them for yourself. Since you're getting a new camera, this will be a great area to explore when testing its capabilities.

I am having an issue with the horizon line, I think its canted just a pinch!! also saturation is over the top a bit. I would crop out the blown out sky at this point also..I use a SS #3 from singh ray all the time and still bracket 5 images, then blend the sky from a darker exposure with the middle shot usually.. THat works best when the sky is so bright for me and my foreground is dark..

And I think you're right, the horizon line is skewed, and definitely oversaturated. I'll have to wait until I get my real computer back to fix it, this laptop makes it look fine, but I looked at it on a friend's computer and it's definitely oversaturated.

AuntiPode wrote:
Vastly more reasonable than the original.
Definitely. Now that I have a gigantic monitor and my computer fixed, I can see what you guys saw. I post processed on a 14" laptop the first time and it looked fine. Now it's definitely more realistic.

As far as HDR software goes, if you have Lightroom, I would recommend trying out the LR/Enfuse plugin. I've been using it for a while, and I'm relatively pleased with the results. It's also inexpensive, and gives pretty natural look. Only problems I've seen are when the trees are blowing and it can't align them very well.